The document discusses the concept of an Agile Fractal Grid, which combines the Industrial Internet with high-performance computing and new digital controls to operate the electric grid more efficiently and resiliently. It aims to translate distributed energy resources, improved state awareness, and advanced control technologies into normal efficient operations and quicker fault recovery. This rests on rapidly collecting and sharing grid information at all levels through an Industrial Internet network and advanced analytics to coordinate fragmented grid operations like complete microgrids. It also discusses how the grid is changing from centralized generation to one with more local generation and demand-side resources that require active control coordinated through this Agile Fractal Grid approach.

1. *pictures and content provided by the Founder of the SFA Chuck Speicher
Our Race with Intelligent Machines
A revolution in accelerated productivity growth called the Industrial Internet
The Agile Fractal Grid is a combination of the Industrial Internet operating in tandem high
performance computing and a new generation of digital controls that can operate the grid with
greater agility, real time precision, and dynamic alignment with changing local conditions. The
concept is that new grid technologies coupled with a trustworthy industrial internet can translate
distributed generation, better knowledge of state, and more extensive and refined control
technology into more efficient operation of the grid under normal conditions, and a better,
quicker, more nuanced reaction to fault conditions to accelerate restoration, and provide better
service until power is restored.
Agile control rests on the rapid and accurate collection and sharing of information at all levels of
grid operation, and the integration of advanced analytics to manage the data and assess control
options. The foundations are a communications network that you can trust (the Industrial internet),
and a fractal architecture on which each fragment of the grid operates like a complete grid,
using an information and control paradigm that can be shared with other fragments to allow
coordinated operation, islanding, and reintegration.
The Industrial Internet
serving the needs smart
communities everywhere.
The 940 rural cooperatives
The new grid
paradigm
Fast free in-flight wi-fi
The lean development process at scale
The
Industrial
Internet
The
Agile Fractal
Grid
Secure Resilient
It’s the combination that’s magic.
FIGURE 1 PROVIDED BY THE SECURITY FABRIC ALLIANCE *
The grid is changing from a relatively uncontrolled entity in which large scale power generation
“regulated” voltage, phase, angle and power flow through its immense capacity to one where

2. *pictures and content provided by the Founder of the SFA Chuck Speicher
local generation and controllable loads are providing a smaller scale, more efficient option, but
one which must be actively controlled.
The Agile Fractal Grid concept shows how this can be accomplished at all scales from a factory
to a continent. The community of practice assembled to deliver on this vision will learn from other
subject matter experts while teaching these methods to others in the spirit of the timeless way of
building. Our community of practice will use lean development and other operating principles
that have met these challenges in the past while speeding innovation to markets.
An Internet You Can Trust – Now: Better
Internet of Things
Internet2
Industrial Internet